


The Replacement

by wastefulreverie



Series: PhannieMay Shots 2019 [13]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Ending, Family, Fun Danny - Freeform, Gen, Identity Reveal, Super Phantom - Freeform, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 14:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastefulreverie/pseuds/wastefulreverie
Summary: It was only a moment; Jack and his family evacuated the house. Phantom was there, standing beside Sam and Tucker. Maddie voiced her concern for Danny - where was Danny? Technus pummeled Phantom into the street, diverting Jack's attention for a split second. And in that second, the first Phantom - the one beside Sam and Tucker - vanished.He was inexplicably replaced with Danny.





	The Replacement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 15 of Phanniemay 2019, Alternate Ending. (AKA the Alternate Ending to Identity Crisis.)

Inside the house, the lights flashed dangerously as the entire building began to shake. Technus had infiltrated the mainframe; nothing in FentonWorks was safe anymore until the ghostly threat was neutralized. Jack, Maddie, Tucker, Sam, and Phantom ran through the living room, stepping around furniture and making a beeline for the front door. If this wasn't a life-threatening situation, Jack probably would've taken a shot at Phantom right then. After all, it was probably the specter's fault that Technus was there in the first place! But now he had to get he, his wife, and the kids somewhere safe.

They poured out into the street, towards Technus. The house wasn't safe, but if they could eliminate him while he was outside… then everything might resolve itself. Right now, Technus was making a lot of raucous on the roof, sounds of fizzling ectoblasts and tearing wires resounding from above.

Before Jack could make a plan with Maddie, she froze. "Wait," she counted heads in their group, realizing that they had lost someone. She did little to filter the panic in her voice, "Where's Danny?"

Danny. Danny had been in the lab with them minutes earlier when Technus had taken control, but he had seemingly disappeared behind Jack's back. He must still be in the lab! He made eye contact with Maddie, on the verge of (further) panic. And then, there was a loud impact several feet away; the sound of concrete cracking under immense force and a piercing scream. Jack spun again, distracted by the sudden collision.

Jack had just enough time to see Phantom picking himself out of the crater that was now in the street. Technus cackled as he flew down and engaged the befuddled ghost-boy in combat. But how had Phantom moved so fast? From the look of it, Phantom had been thrown into the street from above, so how had he moved from the doorstep to the roof in such little time?

"I'm right here, Mother!" Danny announced boldy, behind Jack. Wait… Danny? Jack turned back and found Danny standing where Phantom had been seconds earlier. Danny's chest was puffed out, his arms placed firmly on his hips. How had he gotten there though? Danny had definitely not been there before, instead, Phantom had arrogantly stood there.

Jack called him out on it, "Wait a minute, weren't you just-?"

"Mom, Dad? Danny, Other Danny!" Jazz cried. Jack looked up and felt his stomach sink when he realized that Jazzypants was still instead the house. The house that had been forfeited by that technology ghost! She was leaning out of her window, waving her arms around frantically.

Jack's paternal concern overwhelmed his momentary suspicion; his Jazz was in danger! Whatever was strange about Danny and Phantom right now could wait. He had to save his daughter. Maddie reached the same conclusion and the two of them stormed back inside the house, going back for Jazz.

Phantom ultimately ended up resolving their problem with Technus. In other words, the ghost child had cleaned up his own little mess in his little ploy to convince Amity Park he was the 'hero'. It irritated Jack, but there was nothing he could do about it other than be vigilant and wait for Phantom to slip up. It would happen eventually and he would prove to everyone what a nasty manipulator Phantom was.

Speaking of manipulation… as Jack tried to drift off that same night, his mind kept wandering. His train of thought kept returning to the same moment, that moment where nothing really felt right. When he had turned for just a moment, and Danny inexplicably replaced Phantom. Even though it wasn't significant, it kept nagging at him. There was a quiet voice in the back of his mind, whispering 'don't let this go' and Jack was prisoner to its whims.

First of all, it was illogical in the first place how Phantom had moved from the doorstep to the roof in an instant. But before Phantom had disappeared, Danny hadn't been anywhere in the vicinity. Was it possible that Phantom had been able to fly inside the house, get Danny, and then fly up to the roof to fight Technus? So how had he moved so impossibly fast? Did Phantom have some kind temporal powers that allowed him to stop or slow down time? No, no that couldn't be it; Jack had never seen him use those powers, and even if Phantom could control time it completely disrupted the entire theme of his abilities.

There was also the possibility that it had been an illusion. The Danny that had stood on the doorway hadn't seemed like the real Danny. Maybe Phantom could create illusions and had been on the roof the entire time, sending an illusion of himself to follow their little group out of the house. Once Maddie pointed out that Danny wasn't there, Phantom transformed his illusion into a mirage of Danny. But that… that didn't seem likely. For one, why would Phantom do that in the first place? To distract them? Messing with ghost hunters was something that Phantom would do, but it didn't make sense why he would use that method.

So, maybe instead of focusing on Phantom, Jack should be investigating Danny. He couldn't make sense of the ghost boy, so maybe he'd have more luck with Dannyboy. For one, here had been something off about his son… his entire presence had been out-of-character, and his eyes… had they been green? If that were the case, Jack would be inclined to believe that Danny was overshadowed, but that didn't add up either. If Phantom had been overshadowing Danny, he wouldn't have been able to be fighting Technus at the same time! So why had Danny been acting strange, and what had he done after he seemingly replaced Phantom?

From what Jack could recall, he didn't see Danny again until the fight was over. After he had left to go save Jazz, Technus made their house pick itself up and walk (yes, walk) to the nearest shore. They managed to move the house back by mimicking Technus's technology, but before that… he'd found Danny, Sam, and Tucker on the roof. However, by then Danny had been acting normal.

So what had happened between the time Danny appeared at the doorstep and had somehow gone up to the roof. Jack knew for a fact that Danny couldn't have followed him back into the house and gone up to the roof that way, so he must've either scaled the entire house from the outside (an impossible feat) or gotten help from a ghost. And the only ghost that could've helped him was Phantom! So Phantom had flown Danny up to the roof, but why? Maybe Phantom thought it was too dangerous for any humans to stay on the ground while Technus was moving their house? But why would Phantom pull them into the fray inside of moving them to safety if he was insistent on maintaining his 'selfless hero' guise?

Was it possible that Phantom was working with Danny and his friends? That'd also shed more light on how they were able to pull that replacement act earlier. Although, Jack thought he knew his son, though. For instance, Jack had always told his children never to cooperate with ghosts! But like the rest of Amity Park they'd been suckered into believing Phantom's heroism. And now that he thought about it, this wasn't the only incident where Danny and Phantom seemed to be on the same page. Yesterday, when Jack had tried to get Danny to shoot Phantom at the amusement park, it was like Danny purposely missed! How far did this allegiance run, how much had Phantom manipulated his son?

Jack didn't know if he'd be able to sleep without knowing. Now that he had picked open that scab, festering and aching, he needed something to bandage it; he needed relief for this revelation otherwise he might keep picking at it, leaving a scar.

In the darkness of his bedroom, the Fenton'O'Matic Alarm Clock glowed like a green beacon. It was roughly half past one'o'clock. Beside him, Maddie slept soundly, breathing rhythmically and ignorant to Jack's worries about Danny. He'd leave her out of this for now, let her rest. Because first, he needed to talk to Danny about this. He needed to confront his son about his evident loyalty to Phantom and insist that it couldn't continue. Because whatever had happened today, that switching, hadn't been good.

Jack stopped outside of Danny's bedroom. He really didn't want to wake his son up, especially given how little sleep he had been getting lately (something else to attest to Phantom or just coincidence?), but Jack needed to know now. Maybe that was selfish, but overall he was really just concerned for his family.

So, he braced himself and crossed that line. He opened Danny's bedroom door and maneuvered himself inside, his head barely grazing the top of the doorframe. It was dark in Danny's room, so Jack did his best not to bump into any desk corners or trip over dirty clothes. However, when Jack got close enough to Danny's bed, he realized something startling.

Danny wasn't there. At 1:30am, Danny was not in his room… which could not be a good sign. Jack had passed the bathroom on the way to Danny's room and the door had been wide open, empty, so that eliminated that possibility. And judging by the water bottle on Danny's nightstand, it also wasn't likely he had woken up for a glass of water….

What do I do now? he wondered. Should he wait for Danny to come back, should he go out and look for him, should he wake up Maddie… should he go down to the weapons vault? Knowing what he knew now, Jack realized that Danny's venture out into the night was probably the fault of Phantom. Whether it was consensual or not, Jack was going to dismember that ghost for convening Danny in the middle of the night. Jack slipped into a bitter fantasy, conceiving scenarios where he gave Phantom a piece of his mind - and his improved Fenton-Peeler.

After a few minutes or so, Jack shook him out of his daydream and got back on track. What should he do? As he weighed his options, there were footsteps slowly and carefully ascending the stairs. Jack froze, entranced by the sound of the wood groaning under someone's weight - Danny's weight. After a moment, Danny slowly stumbled into view - loose pajamas, scruffy hair, and a glass of orange juice.

Well, maybe Jack had been mistaken. Perhaps the orange juice meant that Phantom wasn't involved!

Danny walked through the doorway and stopped. He didn't flinch or scream - the normal reaction when one found someone in their dark bedroom at 1am. Instead, Danny just looked at him skeptically, "Why are you in my room, Dad?"

The prompt question caught him off-guard. "I um, I well…" Jack didn't know how to explain it. With no excuses coming to mind, Jack decided to be frank with his son. And that meant he had to play the role of the strict parent. "Danny," he said seriously, doing his best to convey genuine austerity, "I know about Phantom."

Danny stiffened, his eyes misting over for a moment. His grip on his glass of orange juice tightened, but otherwise his facial expression remained neutral. "What."

Jack repeated himself. There was nothing for a few seconds before Danny blinked about five times and took a long sip of orange juice. He blankly walked past Jack, put his orange juice on his nightstand, turned on his lamp, and collapsed onto his bed. "What are you talking about? What do you know about Phantom?" On his bed, he was sitting learning the wall, keeping several feet between he and Jack. Even though he was upholding a calm facade, his eyes flitted between Jack and the window, as if he would have to make a sudden escape.

Jack didn't like how scared his son looked. Maybe… he should tone down the strictness. But then again, Danny should know better than to associate with ghosts. Jack had to drill that in his head, whether Danny liked it or not.

"It was earlier today," Jack started. "I saw you, well, switch when we were in front of the house together. It was confusing me until I put two and two together. That you and Phantom are…" Jack didn't want to say friends. Calling Phantom anybody's friend felt wrong. So he shrugged uncomfortably, "you know."

Danny recoiled back, subconsciously looking for a way to put more space between him and Jack - but he was already against the wall, so there was none. "Oh God," he squinted his eyes shut. Danny's breathing accelerated, and he looked like he was having a difficult time staying calm. "I can barely… barely remember that after the split. But that wasn't exactly subtle, was it? Of course I'd screw up - and now… now you know." His opened his eyes and they were saucers, wavering under Jack's apprehension.

"Just…" Jack sighed -man, Danny was making this hard by looking so scared - "tell me how it happened, son."

Danny gulped, "Promise me you won't get mad."

"At you?" Jack shook his head. "No. Not at you. I'm just a little… frustrated that you disobeyed us. But I don't believe it's your fault." Because it's hisfault. After this was over, Jack was tearing Phantom a new one.

Danny seemed to relax a but, but he was still frighteningly tense. "Well," he recalled, "it was at the beginning of this school year. We - Sam, Tuck, and I - were down in the lab with the unfinished portal." Jack remembered this! Danny was recounting the day the portal had turned on. Had they really been working with Phantom since then?

"I went inside and pressed a button. It… shocked me and I guess I…" he trailed off. Danny shook his head dismissively. "You get it. And when I woke up, Sam and Tucker were freaking out. I freaked out before managing to turn to normal. I didn't have any control at first and I wanted to tell you so bad but I was also scared. After a while, I decided to fight ghosts and all that stuff with the mayor happened and I just… couldn't tell you anymore."

Danny's phrasing was weird, but he got the general gist of Danny's explanation. Phantom had been there after Danny had activated the portal and must've decided to follow Danny, Sam, and Tucker around. They couldn't get rid of him but eventually just… tolerated him. Until he coerced them into assisting his 'hero gig'. Knowing Danny, it probably took a while for Phantom to win the children over, so that left another possibility.

"So does he threaten you?" Jack assessed. "Is that why you were so scared? And had no control?"

Danny gave Jack a quizzical look. "What do you mean? Who threatens me?" Danny tilted his head, laughing nervously, "I uh… kinda have a lot of enemies if you haven't noticed, Dad."

"Phantom," Jack deadpanned. Danny raised a brow, expressing even more confusion. Jack immediately felt like he had missed something. They were… on the same page, weren't they?

"H - how would Phantom threaten me?" Danny questioned. "You… do realize that we're the same-" he cut himself off. His eyes widened in stark realization, "Oh geez, you don't even know. Do you?"

Jack was lost. "That you and Phantom are working together?"

Danny laughed, but he looked like he wanted to cry. He took another swig of orange juice and put his head in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, "Ancients, this is such a fucking mess."

Red flags flared in Jack's mind. "Language, young man," he chastised.

Danny laughed even more desperately and Jack was tempted to just grab Danny by the shoulders and make him sit upright, to explain everything. From Danny's reaction, it was clear that Danny didn't think he and Phantom were working together. So what had he meant by that explanation earlier? None of it made any sense! Again!

"Son…" Jack asked slowly. "What's really going on?"

Danny eventually stopped laughing and shook his head. "I can't tell you," he denied. "You don't want to know."

Bullshit. This was something that was severely affecting Danny's life; of course Jack wanted - needed - know. It had something to do with Phantom, he knew that much. But what was it? If they weren't working together, then how else was Phantom involved? Hell, in Danny's explanation earlier, he hadn't even mentioned Phantom! He had said 'I freaked out before managing to turn to normal... I didn't have any control…I decided to fight ghosts….'

Danny decided to fight ghosts. He didn't mention anything about Phantom pressuring him to assist with anything. He had said that it was his independent choice to fight ghosts. And earlier, Danny had replaced where Phantom had been seconds earlier. But what if… what if Phantom hadn't even been there at all? It sounded ludicrous, but what if Phantom was just-

'We're the same.'

-Danny?

Was Phantom Danny?

But that still didn't make sense. Danny had been on the doorstep while Phantom was still fighting Technus - so how could they be the same person? Jack was just jumping to conclusions again! That must be it. Yeah… it wasn't like they looked similar either! Because to be the same person, they at least had to have some physical similarities. Danny had black hair, Phantom had white! Not to mention that Danny's height, facial structure, and voice weren't at all like - wait. Jack thought for a moment, conjuring a mental image of Danny and Phantom side by side. Shit. Okay, nevermind. They really did look a lot alike. Enough alike that there was no doubt; they had to be the same.

"You are Phantom," he put together. "And Phantom is you."

Danny winced. "No?" It was a weak lie, a last-ditch attempt at salvaging his secret. They both knew the truth now and knew that Jack wouldn't be swayed.

"What other explanations are there?" Jack challenged.

He fell silent. He kept his eyes trained on the carpet. "I'm sorry, Dad," he admitted. "I didn't want any of it to be like this. I never wanted-" he choked, "-to be a ghost. But we couldn't reverse it. I can… change between my human form - I'm alive, I swear! - ...and my ghost form, but there's no getting rid of Phantom. Not completely anyway. I learned that today with the Ghost Catcher," he said bitterly. "Tried splitting myself and it was awful. I was two places at once, but I was still a little ghost and a little human in either form. Not trying that again."

Jack didn't know what to say, how to respond. Danny… was Phantom. And now that he explained, it made sense why there had been two of himself that day - he'd physically torn himself apart into two different versions of himself. Because from what he was describing, he was supposedly a hybrid. His… ghostly attributes carried over to his human side and vice versa. The portal changed him irreversibly and now he had to live these two… half-lives.

Here was his son, who was always caring condemned to a second existence - of being a creature undefinable by nature (simultaneously acquainted with both death and life), an elusive hero who occasionally mistakes. And like a fool, Jack had pegged him for any typical old specter - believing him to be deceitful. But if there was anything that Jack had noticed in the past year, it was that Danny hadn't changed emotionally, morally - in fact, Danny's humanity was probably more in-line than Jack's own. Jack had made many, many mistakes disregarding Phantom's actions for this town, even if he was a ghost. And he should've recognized that earlier.

He was so overwhelmed by this revelation and his own regret that Jack couldn't think of a thing to say. Danny took Jack's silence to be a bad think and began apoglizing.

"I'm sorry that I started rambling," he muttered. "You… you probably hate me now, don't you? I'm sorry that I… I have to be such a fr - disappointment. If you don't want me here… I'm sorry… I'll just leave."

There were tears in Danny's eyes and suddenly the intangible clamp on Jack's tongue snapped. "That's not the case, Danno! I'm - I'm just surprised. This is… this is okay. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it, since I'd thought I'd came to the correct solution already. Guess I missed a step, ha ha." Who said 'ha ha'? Who really said that out loud, like that?

"You don't… mind that I'm pretty much the bane of your existence, the ghost you want to 'strap down and rip apart molecule by molecule'?" Danny asked, shocked.

Jack inhaled sharply. In retrospect, that had been a very graphic description that he never should have had shared with the family. He didn't feel that way now, for sure. The idea of it was actually horrific. "I more than mind," Jack whispered. "I love you Danno, ghost, boy, or something in between. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to figure out that you aren't… aren't a bad ghost. You're my son and it's on me for making you feel like you had to hide this part of yourself, to be afraid to confront your Mom and I. We didn't make it easy, did we?"

Danny sighed, "Well, it's not all on you. I have had chances…. Besides some of the stuff I've done is questionable out of context," he pointed out.

Jack looked at the clock. It was almost two'o'clock now. Time didn't matter though, what mattered was now. "How about you tell me about that, then?" he asked. "You can give me some more insight about what it's been like for you these past months. So I can understand more," he clarified.

Danny hesitated for a moment. And then, he pulled himself from the wall and scooted over, leaving enough room for Jack to also sit on his bed. "I think that would be alright," he agreed. "Where do you want to start?"

Jack carefully lowered himself onto Danny's bed, his weight causing the mattress to sag unevenly. He faced Danny. The space between them was still tense, but they were working that part out. "Well, how about why you split yourself with the Ghost Catcher today?"

He laughed nervously, "Uh, you see… funny story…."


End file.
